It was a meeting to celebrate speedway sidecar racing and to honour one of the stars of a previous era – but it was the sport’s young guns who stood up to be counted.
The first staging of the Garry Treloar Roll the Dice Invitational at the Kurri Kurri track on 4 February attracted a big roll-up of fans from decades past who came to remember one of the stars.
In some ways it is unfair that Garry Treloar is best known as the father of the “best there’s ever been” in speedway sidecar racing, Darrin Treloar.
Make no mistake Garry was good, between 1976 and 1984 winning two Australian Pairs titles, and state titles in New South Wales and Victoria at a time when success never came easy.
The Kurri Kurri meeting had a line-up of current stars befitting of an Australian Championship showdown.
There was also a look into the future with junior sidecars (including Darrin’s son Jake Treloar as a passenger) and demos of machines and riders from the past (including national champions Andrew Cleave / Dave Power and Ken Walker /Jamie Walker , and Garry Treloar’s long time passenger, his brother Ricky).
Nostalgia aside the racing promised much, and delivered, but with some of the ‘usual suspects’ conspicuously missing from the rostrum at the end of the night – most noticeably Darrin Treloar / Blake Cox and Trent Headland / Daz Whetstone
Speedway sidecars have for years been dominated by older riders, but this meeting saw some young teams step up. On top stood a Bond / Cox team, not the veterans Grant and Glenn but their sons Hayden Bond and passenger Brady Cox who won at their first ever appearance in an A Final at a major meeting.
Next to them another product of junior racing Shane Hudson, with passenger Eli Wright, and then two more experienced duos of Rick Howse / Adam Commons and Brodie Cohen / Damien Egan.
The red-hot action saw plenty of swapping positions, and paintwork, and ten different heat winners –Cohen / Egan and Bond / Cox jnr. the best with three each with the latter placed second to their fathers in another heat.
Howse / Commons needed to win the B Final, beating Justin Plaisted / Simon Cohrs, the senior Bond / Cox duo and another rising star, brother and sister Arron Hartwig / Teagan Hartwig.
Add Tyler Moon / Adam Lovell to the up-and-comers on show – it was a great mix of past, present and future.
By Peter Baker
Photography Paul Galloway
The youthful exuberance of Hayden Bond and passenger Brady Cox shone through in the A-Final